


Not just a Wife or Girlfriend

by Annariel



Category: Primeval
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9214622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: Blade is away in locations unknown and the wives and girlfriends are rallying around, but Lorraine finds herself curiously reluctant.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rain_sleet_snow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/gifts).



"Do you want to come over tonight? Cara is cooking and Claire will be there."

Kermit stood politely in the door of the office Lorraine shared with Jenny and his expression was casually relaxed. Lorraine wasn't fooled. Half the Special Forces team, including Blade and Ditzy were away in locations unknown. This was the `Wives and Girlfriends' rallying around. Unexpectedly she felt her heart sink.

"Oh, we'd invited Lorraine over to ours tonight, but it's nothing special, we can easily reschedule," Jenny injected a perfect amount of doubt into her voice making it clear this was Lorraine's decision to make and no big deal to Jenny. Lorraine had always admired Jenny's ability to deliver the perfect lie and this was another example. It was absolutely the first time she'd heard any mention that she was having dinner with Jenny and Sarah.

She pondered a moment and then decided to accept the out that was being offered. She smiled at Kermit. "I'll be fine with Jenny and Sarah, thanks. Give my love to Cara and Claire though."

Kermit nodded. "Maybe another day?"

"That would be lovely," Lorraine said firmly. It was a Friday and it had been a long week, hopefully she'd feel more up to the wives and girlfriends after she had recharged.

"I'll get Cara to text you," Kermit said, waved a hand and left the room.

"You are absolutely welcome at ours this evening, if you want," Jenny said after the door had closed. "This is the first time Blade's been away since the two of you moved in together isn't it? If you want a break from an empty flat we have plenty of wine and Sarah will be cooking which is always entertaining if nothing else."

"Will Sarah mind?"

"Her family positively thrive on unexpected visitors. She'll be in her element."

Lorraine smiled, "Thanks, yes please, both for the invitation and for giving me the out there."

Jenny nodded. "The look on your face made me think it might be needed."

"I don't know why. They're all wonderful people and really supportive."

Jenny hummed and scowled at her screen before hitting a couple of keys rather forcefully. Then she looked up, "Cara's a stay-at-home mum isn't she?"

"She's a photographer," Lorraine said a little defensively.

Jenny raised her eyebrows and hummed again. "What does Claire do?"

"Teacher."

"Oh God!" Jenny said.

"There's nothing wrong with being a teacher!"

Jenny laughed. "No nothing wrong with it at all. It's just the whole thought of the job gives me the heebie-jeebies. Nieces and nephews I can cope with, thirty random horrors? No way!"

Lorraine relaxed a bit. "I can't imagine doing it either."

Jenny nodded. "Well, if you don't mind my saying so, lovely people notwithstanding, it doesn't sound to me like you have a lot in common with the wives and girlfriends apart from being a wife or girlfriend yourself."

Jenny had hit the nail on the head, Lorraine realised. In particular the label "wife and girlfriend" rankled slightly as if it stripped away the rest of her identity beyond her relationship to Niall.

"They are absolutely wonderful and sometimes exactly the support I need but, yes, there's so much I can't talk to them about."

Jenny nodded, did a little more noisy typing and then hit the return key with an air of triumph. "Excellent, you can come home with us and we can discuss the new Home Office expense claim procedure."

Lorraine laughed. "I don't suppose Sarah will enjoy that much."

"Sarah has a side interest in ancient Egyptian administrative procedures. You'd be surprised how excited she can get about bureaucracy, provided she isn't the person filling in the forms."

* * *

Watching Jenny and Sarah moving around each other in their tiny kitchen was a little like watching a perfectly choreographed dance. Jenny nipped from cupboard to cupboard, producing matching, immaculately laundered, placemats and napkins, large wine glasses and white crockery with just a hint of an abstract design in gold at one edge. Meanwhile Sarah waved a knife around in a somewhat alarming fashion, and Lorraine had a boyfriend who wielded knives professionally in an alarming fashion so she had a good basis from which to judge, all the time talking at nineteen to the dozen mostly about the evils of Nick Cutter but occasionally to comment upon the recalcitrance of the vegetables or the quality of the wine.

Lorraine was beginning to feel slightly that this had been a mistake. She felt like the odd one out as Jenny and Sarah danced around each other and the lack of cheerful commiseration on the agony of simply _not knowing_ what was happening with her loved one was noticeable. Then Jenny plonked herself down opposite Lorraine on the other side of the glass table in the centre of the kitchen and breathed a gentle sigh.

"Sorry, I just like to get the table setting done before I can relax properly. I hope you don't feel too ignored."

Lorraine shook her head mutely.

Jenny toed off her shoes and poured a generous slug of red into her glass. "Do you want wine? or I can knock up a Gin and Tonic."

"Jenny also has a stash of vile but allegedly healthy fruit smoothies in the fridge," Sarah called over from where she was chopping an onion in what Lorraine was certain was an entirely unapproved way.

"Sarah! Do be careful with that knife!" Jenny snapped.

Sarah snorted in an unladylike fashion and waved the knife alarmingly around the top of her head before returning to the mangled remains of the onion. Lorraine found herself wincing. Blade always treated knives with the utmost respect, it was a shock to see someone treating one much as if it were a regular utensil like a wooden spoon.

"Wine will be fine," Lorraine said. She had a suspicion that Jenny and Sarah probably drank a lot more than she was used to, but she could alternate it with water and it would be a lot less obvious that hitting up the fruit smoothies. "What are you cooking?" she asked Sarah.

"Spaghetti Bolognese," Sarah said.

Jenny frowned. "Doesn't Bolognese sauce take about three hours to simmer?"

"Not the way my mother makes it."

"Your mother was Indian," Jenny pointed.

"My mother was an Indian woman trying to fit in with British society in the 1970s. This Spaghetti Bolognese recipe is the immigrant experience compressed into a tin of tomatoes, two carrots, an onion and a kilogram of beef. Don't knock it."

Sarah dumped the ingredients in a cooking pot, frowned momentarily and then emptied her wine glass in after them. She wandered over to the table and helped herself to a second glass.

"When did your family come to the UK?" she asked Lorraine.

"Windrush generation, though not the actual Windrush. I'm third generation," Lorraine said.

"Longer than my lot then."

"We don't really have any family dishes, though. I think my grandmother ditched them all when trying to fit in."

"My mother was schizophrenic about it. I was brought up half on Smash, gravy, peas and Spaghetti Bolognese of dubious authenticity and half on my mother's curries. The Bolognese is quicker and easier to make than curry though, I hope you don't mind."

Lorraine shook her head. "It was good of you to have me over at such short notice."

Sarah made a face, "Well, you know," she said awkwardly.

"You can say his name, you know," Lorraine said.

"For all I said you didn't have much in common with the wives and girlfriends. I realise we're rubbish at knowing what it must be like for Blade to be gone," Jenny said.

Lorraine found herself oddly comforted. Jenny, who could be ridiculously abrasive most of the time, could also be surprisingly insightful when she chose to be. Lorraine didn't really need commiseration just some acknowledgement of the situation.

"It's OK mostly. I mean I'm busy and that takes my mind off things."

"But you've only been living together for six months and now big empty flat?" Sarah asked.

"Not that big, but empty, yes. I need to get used to it."

"Well, if you want to get used to it in small doses, we have a spare room. We can watch dumb romantic comedies tonight and you can bring a change of clothes and a laptop over tomorrow and just hang out if you want," Jenny said.

Lorraine thought about the flat which seemed surprisingly desolate without Blade's quiet presence in it. "That feels a bit like running away," she said.

Jenny leaned across the table top. "Firstly, running away is an underrated skill. Ask Ditzy. There is no one working on the front line at the ARC who doesn't have a good track record of running away." Jenny paused a moment, "Apart from Cutter, of course."

"Because Nick Cutter has to be an exception for everything," Sarah said.

Lorraine smiled. "And secondly?"

"Secondly, be kind to yourself. No one is handing out medals for suffering in silence. If you want somewhere to come and hang out, or even just hide in a room catching up on email, because I know you do that at weekends so don't deny it... so anyway, if you want somewhere to hide but somewhere where you can hear someone else moving around the house, then our door is open. But only if you want to. God forbid that I wife and girlfriend you."

"Actually the wives and girlfriends have invited me over tomorrow night and I'll probably go."

"But you'll bear us in mind?"

"I'll bear you in mind," Lorraine said and realised that she would. She had a sense that Jenny was telling the truth when she said Lorraine could just hide in their spare room answering emails and Lorraine had to admit there was a certain attraction in the idea.

"Good," Jenny said and clinked her glass against Lorraine's.

At that moment there was a hissing sound from the hob, Sarah squeaked and dashed to rescue the sauce. Jenny smiled at her indulgently and then turned back to Lorraine with an inconsequential quip about cooking skills that made Lorraine chuckle quietly. Lorraine felt herself relax. She was among friends. They couldn't support her the way the wives and girlfriends could, but there were things the wives an girlfriends couldn't offer either and it was fine to make use of both. As Jenny had said, there were no medals for suffering in silence.


End file.
